The Einstein Papers

225 Pages·2000·1.08 MB·English

by  Craig Dirgo

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The Einstein Papers
Craig Dirgo
After the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Albert Einstein formally made
his decision. The Unified Field Theory would need to be kept secret. The power that
could result from the improper use of the theory was simply too great a risk for the
world at this time.
A world populated by men who in the last war had just displayed its
crudest side.
A world that seemed bound to wage war and spurn peace.
—from THE EINSTEIN PAPERS
"Entertaining. . . . The writing is bree2y and clear, the action is constant, and the weapon
developed from Einstein's theory is credible and fascinating."
—Publishers Weekly
"Well done and much fun."
—Kirkus Reviews
EINSTEIN PAPERS
New York London Toronto Sydney Singapore
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Copyright © 1999 by Craig Dirgo
Originally published in hardcover in 1999 by Pocket Books
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For
information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of die Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-671-02322-5
First Pocket Books paperback printing April 2000
10 987654321
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
Cover art by Ben Perini Printed in the U.S.A.
For my father, Lt. Colonel Earl Dirgo -
an atomic warrior who died too soon
Prologue
"It can't...," Albert Einstein started to say, "it's so ..."
Then he lowered his arm and his fingers relaxed.
The noise of the chalk shattering as it struck the worn green linoleum was not loud.
Still, the sound in the otherwise silent
laboratory had the same effect on Einstein as snapping a leather belt on a dog's rump. He
jumped. Stepping forward, closer to the blackboard, his left shoe ground a piece of the
chalk into dust as he stared at the final equation in shock.
All at once the shock faded away and he felt instantly euphoric. It was the same
sensation felt by a gambler hitting the grand prize jackpot after a lifetime of losing. He
grinned and stared up at the heavens. He felt a welcome peace he had never felt before.
The feeling was electrifying, instantaneous, and completely unexpected.
The hair on the back of Einstein's neck stood straight out. This was immediately
followed by a tingling sensation that grew quickly until his entire scalp felt as if it were
on fire. Einstein shook his head, then turned it slightly sideways and stared at his final
notation once again.
The last symbol jumped from the blackboard as if lit by a huge spotlight.
Several minutes passed as Einstein's mind fought to accept the reality of what had
finally been accomplished.
He blinked and continued staring at the equation on the blackboard.
Almost without thought, he reached in his pocket, removed a box of wooden kitchen
matches, and struck one against the side of the box. It flared instantly, tingeing the air
with a sulphur smell as the flame grew larger. He held the burning match poised in the
air in his right hand. With his left he removed his ancient meerschaum pipe from the
pocket of his trousers.
Frozen in place, the match burned slowly down as Einstein stood mesmerized, staring
at the blackboard. Seconds passed until the last remnant of the flame licked the tip of his
finger, breaking his concentration. Flicking the match back and forth to extinguish what
little flame remained, he tossed it over his shoulder toward an ashtray already
overflowing with spent pipe tobacco that sat on a long wooden table parallel to the
blackboard.
Opening the box and lighting a second match, Einstein touched this to the top of the
pipe, then drew deeply through the stem. Blowing the smoke through his mouth, he took
a few steps, then sat down behind the long table and leaned back in an old leather chair.
And then he smiled again.
The final and most difficult part of the puzzle that Einstein called the Unified Field
Theory was discovered on the second day of August, during the last month of World War
II. The solution he had sought for decades surrendered itself to him at just past three in
the afternoon.
Just prior to the eve of the Great Depression, in 1929, Einstein had delivered his first
paper on the theory. Now, sixteen long years later, the physicist was a rapidly aging man
of sixty-six. The last few years, as the aches and pains of old age grew stronger, he
began to fear he might leave this earth without ever solving the theory. The last four
years had passed without Einstein making any noticeable progress, and he had become
discouraged. But he had forged ahead—somehow confident he was on the right track.
He was nothing if not patient.
And then, like an epiphany revealed to the faithful, the answer had made itself clear.
His face remained in a smile of triumph as he stared at the solution again. Einstein
laughed, at first to himself, a chuckle really, but this was soon followed by a loud,
raucous belly laugh. He wiped a tear of joy from his eye.
It was all so uniquely obvious.
Rubbing the side of his nose with the tip of his finger, he stared again at the
blackboard. Just at that instant a shaft of sunlight burst from behind the clouds outside. A
single beam shot through the window of his laboratory as if it were a beacon from the
heavens. The beam lit the dust hanging in the air, a visible legacy to Einstein's refusal to
allow the cleaning people to violate his inner sanctuary. His pipe smoke rose toward the
beam, mixing with the dust and deflecting the light.
For a moment Einstein experienced complete clarity of thought as he stared at the
fruit of his years of labor etched in chalk on the blackboard. Then, placing his pipe in a
briar rack on the table, he rose from the chair. He walked the few steps to the couch in
his office and lay down, pulling a light blanket folded on the edge of the couch across
his body. In seconds he was sound asleep.
He dreamed no dreams that afternoon.
When he awoke from his nap he walked home and ate dinner. He told no one, not
even those closest to him, of the discovery he had just made.
Einstein spent the following day locked in his laboratory carefully rewriting the
complete series of equations onto three fresh blackboards. Then, without pausing for
even a moment of rest, he spent the next forty-eight hours testing and retesting his
complex formulas and equations, attempting to find a flaw. By the third day the exact
same conclusion had been reached.
Shaking his head in amazement, Einstein sat in his worn leather chair once again. The
physicist felt ecstatic that the Unified Field Theory was at long last solved. His
knowledge that the theory had at last been proven, that his years of work were not in
vain, was a defining moment of personal triumph.
In the rarefied world in which Einstein worked, the answers he sought never revealed
themselves easily. Even so, the Unified Field Theory had consumed a great deal of his
life, more than any other problem he had sought to solve. Rising from his chair, he
committed the solution to memory, then began erasing the secret from the blackboards.
"I shall go sailing now," he said under his breath as the last equation disappeared from
the board.
Satisfied the grand puzzle to the universe was at last completed, he decided to reward
himself with a rare day away from his laboratory. When he reached the door he paused
and stared back at the now blank blackboards.
"Yes," he said to himself again, "a sailing trip is in order."
The sixth of August, 1945, dawned warm, with bright clear skies, in Princeton, New
Jersey. The sun creeping over the horizon signaled the beginning of what promised to be
an idyllic summer day. Waking without the benefit of an alarm clock, Einstein rose
slowly from his bed. He rubbed his hands across his wrinkled face, a face that was easily
one of the most recognizable in the world. It was graced with a bushy white mustache, a
bulbous nose, and eyes that looked upon the world with a curiosity that age had not
diminished. His hair was long, straight, and stood away from the scalp as if electrified. A
distinct lack of physical exercise had given him a thickness in the midsection, as is often
the case with older men, but overall his health was still quite good. Other than smoking a
pipe, his only unhealthy habit was a propensity to overwork himself.
Dressed only in tattered boxer shorts, Einstein looked out the small dormer window of
his upstairs bedroom. The rising sun shot across his lawn, the golden rays forming a
blinding arc across the dew-dampened grass. The beams of sunlight broken by the
shrubbery surrounding his yard looked to Einstein like the fingers of God himself. He
smiled at the thought, then slowly stepped from the window.
Caring little about fashion, he donned the same clothing he had left on the floor at the
foot of his antique wooden bed the night before. He pulled on the same pair of wrinkled
tan pants, with the same worn black suspenders hanging down, then zipped up his fly
and snapped the pants closed. Donning yesterday's shirt, once white but now a yellowish
color from repeated washings, he absent-mindedly fastened the buttons crookedly, one
hole too high, then pulled the suspenders across his shoulders. He tucked his shirt in, but
carelessly left one of the tails partially out. Sitting on a worn chair, he pulled on a pair of
dingy socks and laced up his worn brogans. Rising slowly from the chair, he stretched
his arms to the ceiling and took several deep breaths.
Morning exercise completed, and dressed to his satisfaction, he shuffled downstairs.
His housekeeper, Helen Dukas, was already awake. Bustling about the kitchen, she
poured a cup of coffee from the stainless-steel percolator as Einstein sat down at the
cluttered kitchen table. After the cup was placed in front of him, he sipped the steaming
liquid slowly, all the while curiously examining a flower Dukas had placed in a glass on
the table.
As she had every morning for the last seventeen years, Dukas prodded him to eat a
good breakfast, begged him in fact, but the old man just wanted a slice of toast.
Finishing the toasted bread, Einstein began arranging the crumbs into intricate patterns
on the smooth Formica of the table. As he sipped his coffee, he stared at the crumbs.
Slowly reaching for a scrap of paper, which happened to be one of his paychecks that lay
atop a jumbled pile of mail on the table, he quickly began scribbling equations on the
back.
For his celebratory day off, Einstein had requested a car and driver from the Princeton
University motor pool. Though he possessed one of the greatest analytical minds of all
time, he had yet to operate a motor vehicle. The driver, a student named Mike
Scaramelli, arrived promptly at seven. He slid the car to a stop in Einstein's driveway.
After pausing to wipe a handprint from the passenger window with his handkerchief, he
walked up the steps and knocked on the front door of Einstein's home at 112 Mercer
Street. Hearing the knock, Einstein rose from the table and stuffed the check, the back
now covered with equations, into the pile of letters on the counter.
"I will be back before dark," he said to Dukas as he walked from the kitchen.
"Be sure to take a light jacket, Albert," Dukas said as she began to wash Einstein's
breakfast dishes in the sink. "One can never tell how the weather may turn."
Walking across the hardwood floors of his living room, Einstein paused at the coat
rack and removed a jacket. Placing the thin cloth coat under his arm, he opened his front
door, then smiled at Scaramelli. As he walked out the door, he paused to tuck the
newspaper lying on his porch under his other arm. In the driveway, he climbed into the
rear seat of the automobile.
"Is the fuel tank full?" Einstein asked once-he was settled.
"I topped it off this morning, Dr. Einstein," ScarameUi noted.
"Good, gasoline is scarce, what with the war and aU."
"Yes it is, Dr. Einstein," Scaramelli said. "The director of the motor pool was unsure
where you wanted to be driven."
Einstein reached across the front seat and pointed out his destination on the map
Scaramelli held. Tracing the best route to take with his fingertip, Scaramelli placed the
map next to him on the front seat, then put the 1939 Packard into gear and began driving
east, toward the ocean. Einstein settled back again in the rear compartment and began to
read the comics in die newspaper.
It was 7:12 A.M. The pair would reach their destination, a marina on the New Jersey
coast, in just over an hour.
Einstein was a man tied to his work. He had few hobbies, but he truly loved to sail.
He would often struggle mentally with his formulas while at sea, claiming that he could
think more clearly in the salt air. Today's voyage, however, was to be strictly
recreational; the Unified Field Theory was left locked in a far part of his mind, the
solution a secret he was not ready to share. He had yet to tell a soul that the theory was
now complete. There was time enough for that.
Einstein treasured his sailboat as he did few physical possessions. The vessel allowed
him the opportunity and freedom of being truly alone. Away from the closed classrooms
and laboratories where he had spent most of his life. Alone with the deep thoughts that
clouded his every waking moment.
Ernest Hartley, the owner of the marina where Einstein moored his boat, kept the
physicists twenty-seven-foot-long mahogany sloop perfectly maintained. He understood
that his genius friend was not always comfortable with simple mechanics and was easily
puzzled by things others might consider commonplace.
At eleven minutes before eight, the car carrying Einstein was still fifteen miles from
the marina. Although Einstein was not due for another half-hour, his sailboat's heavily
varnished wood was already gleaming in the morning sun, awaiting its owners arrival.
Hartley finished hosing the vessel off with fresh water and rubbed the last of the
brightwork to a dull glow. Hoisting the sails, he gave them a quick visual inspection,
then checked the sailboat's lines for frayed ends. He tested the rudder and found it
moving smoothly. Hartley wiped his hands on a towel and walked back inside to await
Einstein's imminent arrival.
Rolling down the tree-lined road leading to Hartley’s Marina, Einstein folded the
newspaper in half and placed it on the leather-covered seat next to him. Nowadays the
newspaper only depressed him. The news was only of death and dying, of a long war he
hoped would soon end. Instead, he listened to the mechanical sounds coming from the
Packard as he stared out the window at the farmers' fields just inside the border of trees.
Cranking down the window he listened as the flock of Bob Whites in the bushes near the
trees chirped the song that gave them their name.
With World War II sapping most of the industrial production of Detroit, it was very
difficult, even for prestigious Princeton University, to purchase any new automobiles.
That was fine with Einstein. The dark gray Packard had long been his favorite, and the
man who ran the motor pool was well aware of that fact. When Einstein requested a car,
it was usually the Packard that arrived.
Elegant yet understated, the Packard-designed coachwork was finished in a lacquer
color the factory called mourning dove gray. The entire length of the body sported a pair
of thin red accent lines that ended on the front fenders in a rolling wave. The hood was
long and hinged in the middle, with a chrome strip down the center. To each side of the
hood sat fenders, the passenger side featuring a rounded hump where the sidemount
spare tire was stored. Huge round headlights, mounted inside the flowing sheet metal of
the fenders, pointed the way forward. The vehicle was powered by an eight-cylinder
engine that operated so quietly it was nearly impossible to tell when the engine was
running. Its power was channeled though a hydrostatic transmission that required no
shifting of the gears. The seats were finished in red leather, the headliner was made of
gray mohair, and the thick felt carpets muffled any road noise. Set inside the massive
dashboard of the Packard was a radio that sent the sound to a speaker in the driver's area
as well as to a single chrome-covered speaker mounted on the dividing wall to the rear
compartment and facing to the rear. On the radio an orchestra performing works by
Beethoven was playing lightly as Scaramelli slowed, then turned off the pavement and
started down the dirt road to the marina.
Braking the Packard sedan to a stop on the gravel parking lot of the marina,
Scaramelli scurried to open the rear door, then waited as Einstein climbed slowly from
the leather-trimmed rear compartment. On the gravel next to the Packard, the physicist
stood and breathed deeply of the salt air for a few moments.
"What a glorious day," he noted, his words still thick with his native German accent.
Scaramelli nodded silently. The student was still in awe of the great man and found
ordinary conversation with him difficult. He walked respectfully behind as Einstein
entered the marina building.
Hartley looked up from the fishing magazine he was reading on the counter as the
door swung open. He smiled, folded the magazine closed, and greeted Einstein warmly.
"Good to see you, Doctor. Your boat is all ready to sail."
Einstein returned the smile and nodded slowly. "Thank you, Ernie," he said simply,
his eyes squinting slightly from the dim light inside the building.
With Hartley leading the way, Einstein and Scaramelli walked through the marina
building. The shelves lining the marinas walls were crammed floor to ceiling with dusty
chandlery. Boxes of oil were piled next to wooden crates containing bottles of soda.
Spools containing the material to sew new sails sat alongside shelves stacked with fresh-
cut hardwoods that tinted the air with their scents as they aged. A polished brass antique
binnacle with round balancing weights sat off to one side.
Einstein paused to peer at the compass inside. "That is what started me in science," he
said to no one in particular.
Hartley smiled at the physicist, having heard the story before.
"I wondered why the needle always pointed north," Einstein said quietly as the men
exited through the door leading to the dock.
Walking along a weathered wooden ramp, the trio stopped at Einstein's boat, which
rocked gently in the waves lapping at the dock. The floating dock where the sailboat was
moored was nearly level with the ramp. The water was at high tide.
"You should catch the outgoing tide nicely," Hartley said, studying the water.
"Ah, an ebb tide," Einstein said as he climbed aboard the vessel whose bow was
already pointing seaward. "Excellent."
Checking the boat absentmindedly, he raised one of the sails of the sloop, then settled
behind the helm. His hands upon the highly polished wheel, he nodded toward Hartley,
who started untying the lines but then stopped.
"I forgot something, Doctor," Hartley said. "I'll just be a second."
Running inside, he quickly returned with a paper sack, its top folded over and
fastened with a wooden clothespin. "My wife made you lunch, in case you get hungry."
Einstein, always somewhat embarrassed by the attention he generated, thanked the
man humbly. "You're too good to me, Ernie," he said slowly. "Please be sure to thank
Katherine for me."
"What time should we expect you back?" Hartley asked as he handed the sack to
Einstein.
"Time is but a concept, my good friend," Einstein said. "But since you asked, the
latest should be an hour or two before sundown."
With a motion from Hartley, Scaramelli cast off the last of the lines holding the sloop
in place. The boat was now free of the dock and Hartley carefully shoved the bow from
the dock with his foot. The wind began to carry the vessel to sea. With a slight wave of
his hand, Einstein steered toward the open water, a single sail raised to the wind.
Hartley reached in his pocket and removed a pack of Lucky Strikes. He lit one and
puffed. Then he and Scaramelli stood watching from the dock until the small boat was
safely past the breakwaters and in open water. When only a small white speck of sail
remained silhouetted against the horizon the two men walked back inside.
Three-fourths of a mile east and three miles south of Hartley's Marina the dark green
water of the Atlantic Ocean relentlessly surged toward land. On the tops of the waves a
thin curl of white broke into foam as the sea-water slid from its peak and rushed toward
land. The troughs between the waves were wide and even spaced. The smell of salt and
seaweed hung thickly in the air, as if the winds were being misted by a natural perfume.
The sun this morning was bright yellow and radiating heat. It hung above the horizon at
one-third of its daily arc. Thin clouds overhead moved on the breeze, racing seaward
away from land.
Einstein reveled in a silence broken only by the noise of the wind whipping against
the fabric of the sails. The salt spray blown back from the bow as it dipped into the
troughs between the waves quickly buffeted his flowing hair until it was a tangled white
mess. Breathing deeply of the salty air, Einstein allowed himself a small chuckle of
delight. He hooked a rope to the wheel, then tied it to a cleat on the gunwale to make a
crude autopilot so that he could go forward to raise another sail. Back at the helm, he
unhooked the rope, then steered farther south along the coast of New Jersey, keeping the
sailboat just in sight of land.
It wasn't that Einstein was afraid of the deeper water, he wasn't. It was just that the
seabirds stayed closer to shore. He loved to watch the birds as they swooped and dived
at the sea, in a spontaneous ballet of water and air. He stared off the port bow as a hawk
dived to the water, retreating with a small fish in its beak.
Standing at the wheel, he waved his hand at the bird as if to signal hello.
Throughout his life, Einstein had always been a deeply religious man. In a magazine
interview, he was quoted as saying that he believed all his best ideas came from God.
His religious side also made him cherish the natural world surrounding him. Perhaps
more than others he understood the complicated powers at work on the planet. Certainly
he appreciated them more than most.
He was a simple man bound to complex thoughts.
Continuing along the coastline, he daydreamed back to a time several years ago. On a
day of sailing much like this, a huge blue whale had breached off his sailboat's starboard
bow. Running forward to drop the sails, he had waited patiently until the whale breached
again, directly alongside his vessel. To this day he could still recall the intense feelings
that had washed over him as he gazed into the huge whale's eyes. Einstein clearly
remembered that he had seen in the eyes of the whale a great intelligence, wisdom, and
knowledge. The experience had filled him with deep emotion.
Warmed by the sun and tickled by a pleasant breeze, the physicist studied the sea
carefully as he sailed south. All around his sailboat he witnessed life. Atlantic porpoise
slid to the surface like graceful dancers in an underwater tango, while schools of small
fish boiled to the surface to be fed upon by dive-bombing gulls and pelicans.
Continuing twenty nautical miles south along the coast, content just to be sailing, he
at last grew weary and stopped in a small protected cove he had found on a previous
voyage. He dropped the anchor off the bow, then glanced the short distance to land. The
shoreline, carpeted by a thick forest of trees leading down to the waters edge, would
provide him with a quiet spot to spend his afternoon. From the trees the chirping of birds
rolled across the water and brought him peace. A pair of bullfrogs croaked out their calls
while a butterfly flitted from shore and landed on the main mast.
Einstein walked back to the stern of the boat, stretched his aching back, then settled
on the deck near a coiled pile of rope. Though he usually paid little attention to food,
sometimes literally forgetting he needed to eat, he had a robust appetite this afternoon.
He took out one of the liverwurst sandwiches Katherine Hartley had packed for him.
Unfolding the waxed paper he took a huge bite. A dab of hot German mustard dotted his
chin and he wiped it away with a fingertip. Deeper in the brown paper bag he found a tin
foil package. Removing a deviled egg, the top dusted with orange paprika, he consumed
it with childish delight. For dessert he ate from a paper container of fresh cranberries. He
washed it all down with a bottle of tepid homemade beer. Carefully placing the refuse
back in the paper sack, he stowed it in a side compartment, then sat on the stern of the
boat contented. His stomach was full but his mind, for once, was strangely empty.
Slowly he fell into a deep slumber.
Ten thousand miles and ten time zones to the west of New Jersey on an ancient rocky
island, an artificial sun was about to burn with all the intensity of a hell come to earth.
Sun glinted off the silver fuselage of a lone B-29 as it flew high above the water. On the
wings, on either side of the fuselage, the four Wright Cyclone engines that powered huge
four-bladed propellers droned in a monotonous beat as the bomber was guided north.
Colonel Paul Tibbet, Jr., was the commander of the bomber Enola Gay, the plane
assigned to unleash the unnatural sun. Tibbet, operating under a thick cloak of secrecy,
had explained the purpose of the mission to his crew only a few hours before.
The crew of the Enola Gay was a tight group, honed to perfection through the long
hours they had spent training and retraining these last few months. They were as close as
men could be, each trusting the other completely. Even so, no one aboard kidded around
as usual on the flight north toward Japan. The crew was lost in their own thoughts. They
were the chosen warriors for a new age, and they were justifying to themselves the
devastation they knew they were about to inflict.
Tibbet signaled the crew they had arrived at the ten-minutes-to-target point. The crew
shed their doubts and began to prepare for the bomb run. Trained almost to the point of
brainwashing, they were robotic in their movements. The crew would perform their
mission exactly as they were trained. They would deliver the pay-load to the target area.